Aston Villa vs Stoke City Sat 15th Dec 3pm | Page 11 | Vital Football

Aston Villa vs Stoke City Sat 15th Dec 3pm

Poor performance today lucky to get 2 goals and come away with anything. Too many below average displays from individual players; Elmohamady, Hourihane, Abraham, Hutton and Bolasie. Without Grealish there was no spark in our midfield, shows what a class player his is at this level
 
You have only to look at the players in the Stoke team to realise they're going to be a difficult team to beat, and could easily get a win. They had a dodgy start but they're coming to terms with the Championship; they'll make steady progress from here onwards. I reckon we did bloody well to come back twice against them.

Kodj shows his value to us once more. If Grealish stays out maybe he should be the replacement.

4 points out of the next 2 matches would still keep us knocking on the door.
 
G.T. said:
Hi Donkey,
Whelan was substituted in the 85th minute, by which time he will ' have been blowing through his arse' for the last 80 minutes. Mr Whelan's legs went a couple of years ago and watching him attempting to 'run' always brings a smile to my face.?. By selecting him D.S. is simply confirming that he considers others in the squad to be 'not up to snuff'. A sad indictment to the young hopefuls left to sit this one out........
The thinking that a point at home is a' point gained' is negative in the extreme.After all we are not talking about running Man. City close here...it is just a mediocre Stoke City for heavens sake.
Yes a reality check is about right I think......Your perspective on ' success is obviously far different to mine....
Regards,
G.T.
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I’d have taken Whelan off earlier but with Grealish and Bjarnasson (and Lansbury?) injured there are limited options. Did Hogan actually touch the ball when he came on? Smith is limited with the squad he has inherited. I’d have liked to have seen o’hare but he might have been bullied out of the game by the Stoke lot
 
Just back, wet and cold . Stoke are going to be top 6 imho. They have a squad that will last 46 games plus play offs. I thought we were poor today, wasted all of our corners , bolasie and el Ghazi both looked crap - possibly the weather ?? Abraham was snuffed out. McGinn did well but the ref was a joke again.
 
Isn't it refreshing to see us roar back fighting instead of like the days of old where we'd go down and feel sorry for ourselves and whimper out to a loss. So glad we have Dean Smith, I don't even question the line ups anymore as I have faith in Dean which it's been a long while since I've had the faith in any Villa manager since O'Neil and even back then O'Neil could go too defensive at times.
 
Poor performance today, especially the full backs and an almost non existent central midfield. Grealish was a big miss as we lacked creativity. Realistically, barring a miracle, we are looking at the play offs if we can sort the defence. Hopefully Dean can sort the full backs and goalie as early in Jan as possible.
 
G.T. said:
Hi Donkey,
Whelan was substituted in the 85th minute, by which time he will ' have been blowing through his arse' for the last 80 minutes. Mr Whelan's legs went a couple of years ago and watching him attempting to 'run' always brings a smile to my face.?. By selecting him D.S. is simply confirming that he considers others in the squad to be 'not up to snuff'. A sad indictment to the young hopefuls left to sit this one out........
The thinking that a point at home is a' point gained' is negative in the extreme.After all we are not talking about running Man. City close here...it is just a mediocre Stoke City for heavens sake.
Yes a reality check is about right I think......Your perspective on ' success is obviously far different to mine....
Regards,
G.T.
Click to expand...


Did I mention success ?.

Nope.

Do i consider that being 1-0 down and then 2-1 with 5 mins to go a point gained ?

Yes.

Were you there today ?. If you were then you would have seen a very decent Stoke side who have now got to grips with relegation, a new manager and will be up there in the mix.
Their centre backs are Shawcross and Ashley Williams for a start. Joe Allen is in there. Brought on Afobe.

Smith is having a mare. We have done too well. Because now it seems we have only drawn a game and the divine right to win every game is creeping back on the forum already.
 
Silhillvilla said:
Just back, wet and cold . Stoke are going to be top 6 imho. They have a squad that will last 46 games plus play offs. I thought we were poor today, wasted all of our corners , bolasie and el Ghazi both looked crap - possibly the weather ?? Abraham was snuffed out. McGinn did well but the ref was a joke again.
Click to expand...

Agree Sillhill. Some have and are totally underestimating Stoke. They will be up there.

To be fair Bolasie is so erratic. I don't think even he knows what he is going to do. Kept going though and the cross for Kodjia was sublime.
On the corners. I was up in arms with them first half but seeing the corner flags up the North stand nearly horizontal in the second half then maybe it's the reason for that.
 
Quite obvious really, we aren't winning enough games. 8 from 22 is average mid table form. Qpr & swansea have won more than us . Bristol city just as many.
Leeds & Norwich both have 13 wins .
We are 2nd highest scorers after wba but defensively we are dire , only 5 teams have conceded more than us .
 
We are 11 points from automatic promotion places. Tough to catch-up but Norwich and Leeds are not going to win every game. If we are anywhere near come the end of the season we (and Smith) will have done extremely well considering the mid season shenanigans and then where when Bruce was given the chop.

Let’s just see. We are 7 unbeaten and having played West Brom, Forest, Boro, Stoke etc we are looking ok and should have more points than we actually have gained.
 
G.T. said:
Hi Donkey,
Whelan was substituted in the 85th minute, by which time he will ' have been blowing through his arse' for the last 80 minutes. Mr Whelan's legs went a couple of years ago and watching him attempting to 'run' always brings a smile to my face.?. By selecting him D.S. is simply confirming that he considers others in the squad to be 'not up to snuff'. A sad indictment to the young hopefuls left to sit this one out........
The thinking that a point at home is a' point gained' is negative in the extreme.After all we are not talking about running Man. City close here...it is just a mediocre Stoke City for heavens sake.
Yes a reality check is about right I think......Your perspective on ' success is obviously far different to mine....
Regards,
G.T.
Click to expand...

The proper name is Melon Donkey by the way.

Yours Sincerely

Sir Dennis
 
After the mess Bruce has gotten us into I think DS has done a bloody fantastic job, Chester is clearly not up to par at the moment, we are heavily depleted at the back so have to rely on him for now until we can give him a much needed rest, the LB problem is still there, we will be much tighter at the back once DS gets some players in, at the moment I think the best we can hope for is playoffs but stranger things have happened before.
 
Villan57 said:
Worst performance under Smith but we came from behind twice to get a deserved draw.
Feared the worst when I saw the predictable team selection with both Whelan and Hourihane in the middle and so it proved.
Created bugger all first half and second half was little better as Stoke surrounded Tammy with 4 players,
Fair result in the end I thought,
Can't really replace your best player can you and so it proved
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Yes we played in front of the Stoke defence as we had no one who could go past their midfield. Jack was a big miss in this type of game.

Decent side Stoke, Iwas worried before the game as I had heard of all their 11 players and the likes of Allen and Ryan Woods are very decent players.
 
11 points? Beat Leeds and I'll start to believe its possible to catch them, otherwise I think its play offs for us.
 
Let's be honest.

If Smith was here pre season and started the season with us. We would be far better off than we are now.

Lost to Sheff Utd, lost to Sheff Wed, draws with Bristol City, Blackburn, Brentford, Reading, IPSWICH!!!!!!. All before Smith got here. Well that's 16 points dropped from those games alone.

I'm too superstitious to stick my neck out right now and say that any failure this season will be down to Bruce but........
 
sirdennis said:
Yes we played in front of the Stoke defence as we had no one who could go past their midfield. Jack was a big miss in this type of game.

Decent side Stoke, Iwas worried before the game as I had heard of all their 11 players and the likes of Allen and Ryan Woods are very decent players.
Click to expand...

I think they have a stronger squad or at least an equal one to us. They've had a poor start shame we didn't play them a few weeks back
 
crimsondonkey said:
11 points? Beat Leeds and I'll start to believe its possible to catch them, otherwise I think its play offs for us.
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C'mon guys. It's not mission impossible. If we can be 11 points adrift after just less than half a season then we can make it up in just over half a season. .

Beat Leeds and it's 8 points. 8 points at the halfway point?.

C'mon where's your bollox ?.
 
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